Call of Duty: Black Ops II has a new trailer, zombies

The holiday season approaches, and you know what that means: there's a new chapter in the Call of Duty franchise. Black Ops II is due to hit shelves in the middle of next month. Despite the fact that we're still weeks away from the game's release, an official "launch trailer" has been posted online. This doesn't mean you'll get a chance to play early, but the video does provide a taste of what's in store.

Yep, that looks like Call of Duty to me. This time around, gamers will get to play with invisibility cloaks, jet packs, remote-operated arachnids, and some sort of mechanized hippopotamus. There's even a nod to base jumping, although you'll have to supply your own Red Bull.

The trailer's blaring AC/DC soundtrack is a refreshing change of pace from the seemingly endless stream of game videos laced with thumping dubstep. Still, this looks like yet another Call of Duty game. That's not necessarily a bad thing, if you're into heavily scripted shooters with twitchy multiplayer. Black Ops II will also have zombies. In fact, there's a whole other trailer devoted to what appears to be a rather involved campaign involving the undead.

Mindlessly gunning down zombies has been done to death, of course, but it's hard to complain about what amounts to a third gameplay mode complementing the single-player campaign and the competitive multiplayer. That said, I'm not sure I'll bother with Black Ops II. After following the franchise closely for years, I skipped the last chapter and never really felt like I was missing out. Given all the heavily scripted sequences, I almost feel like I'd rather watch Call of Duty as a movie than play it as a game. Thanks to Rock, Paper, Shotgun for the tip.